My grandma lives in Austria, but every few years she musters up the courage to visit my parents in the States. Every time she swears it'll be her last, because of how taxing the whole trip is on a single woman in her upper 70s.

The last time she flew to St. Louis, it was the usual nightmare. Bad weather, cancelled flights, late for everything. Because of thunderstorms over the midwest, she was stuck in the airport in Toronto until her flight was cleared to leave. Having been awake for close to 24 hours and of course being totally dehydrated from the flight, she went to one of the stores to buy herself a bottle of water. The lady behind the counter refused to sell it to her, however, because my Grandma only had American dollars and Euros, and nothing else. No credit cards, no check book, no ATM cards. After trying to explain the situation very nicely in her best broken English and still being turned away, she was about the leave the line, when a lady behind her took the bottle of water and paid for it along with her own things. Of course, she also refused to accept my Grandma's offer of compensation in USD.

This was the first thing my Grandma told us when she finally got to St. Louis, over 12 hours delayed. Thanks nice lady!

Jaywalker

a letter to the airport authority in Toronto is in order -- International airports routinely take cash of neighboring states -- I have often used American money in Canadian airports or Canadian money in US airports.

you can't expect some small town store to do so -- but international airports should be equipped to handle the major currencies of their most frequent travelers.

Most of the stores I have worked in accept American cash. And they weren't all located next to a border, airport or big city. The exchange rate isn't always good though, so it's better to take it to a bank.

IMO, either there was a policy about not taking it, or the clerk was just being a pain in the tush!

I'm glad that someone was nice enough to buy the water for your Grandma.

Logged

You are only young once. After that you have to think up some other excuse.

Toronto Airport shops normally do take US dollars! In fact, most stores in Toronto will happily take US money (although you may not get your change back in US coins). That's outrageous, particularly when dealing with an elderly woman who needs fluids. I can only hope that it was a misunderstanding somehow.

You know, I really didn't understand it either, I would have assumed that Toronto's airport would take American dollars. I don't know if it was store policy or if the cashier was new or what was going on.

Count me among the shocked that they wouldn't take USD at the Toronto airport. They have always taken my USD, there thought the change has to be in Canadian Dollars and the exchange rate favors the vendor. I've found generally travelers can be nice to each other.

You can use US dollars almost anywhere in Canada. The exchange rate isn't very good (nor do I feel it should be good, as it's a pain to deal with two currencies and I also think it's rude to try to foist the currency of another country around once you are travelling).

The fact that an airport shop in Toronto wouldn't take US dollars is very, very odd.